Wireless communication networks are utilized to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, and broadcast. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of user equipment (UE) or mobile computing devices. Mobile computing devices may communicate with a base station via a downlink and uplink. The downlink refers to the communication link from the base station to the mobile computing device, and the uplink refers to the communication link from the mobile computing device to the base station.
A base station may transmit data and control information on the downlink to a mobile computing device and/or may receive data and control information on the uplink from the mobile computing device. Communication receivers typically employ parameter estimation to estimate certain required parameters for the rest of the receiver to function properly. Pilot sequences, which are sequences already known to the receiver, are used to obtain the parameter estimates. The parameters that are estimated vary per system and receiver but often include things like, channel estimates, receiver power estimates, phase, timing, and frequency.
Limitations of current parameter estimation include a decrease in performance due to error in the parameter estimates, a large amount of overhead associated with using the pilot sequences, and high parameter estimation implementation resource requirements.
Many of these limitations can be overcome by leveraging previous parameter estimates of one or more other mobile devices. Accordingly, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer program products for parameter estimation based on historical context information.